Visiting the Ancestors

It's nice to know that they are making better, weather-proof tents out there because we sure appreciated ours through the previous night's storm! We woke up to a beautiful day in Cortez, Colorado and headed towards Mesa Verde National Park so we could take in the Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings. (visit site at www.mesaverde2006.org) This was a very interesting place to visit, however, hiking, walking and surviving a long day is necessary here. If you ever plan to visit, make sure you stop in at the visitor's center as soon as the park opens so you can reserve at least one of many tours available through the dwellings. Space is limited. We were able to take a tour of a dwelling called "Crystal Palace" and it was well-worth our time. It was interesting to see how these people lived so long ago and to come up with our own reasons why they built where they did and how they survived. The boys, Erik and I had a great time testing our climbing ability on the ladders that were used to get in and out of the cliffs. Some were gradual, some were straight up. I can't imagine how these people even built these dwellings in the cliffs with only a ladder to get them in and out.

After we finished touring the cliff dwellings, we traveled to Durango and checked into the Day's Inn. Now, you have to understand that with three boys, finding a hotel/motel with a pool is almost essential, if not crucial. Hours of cheap entertainment for Erik and I and loads of craziness for the boys. We figured that we should probably purchase our tickets for the Durango/Silverton Steam Railroad trip, so we drove downtown and spent practically half our vacation money on this one trip. To us, it was worth it! Erik and I figured that we wanted to give the boys the opportunity to ride a steam engine train before there were no more around. After we bought the tickets, we took a stroll through old downtown Durango and enjoyed the shops (especially the chocolate shop where we picked up a few chocolates and chocolate-covered apples). We even shared some of our goods with a shop owner a few addresses down the street (we were in a good mood!). Being tired from the early day's activities, we decided to get some dinner at Serious Texas BBQ. Excellent place to eat!! Yummy and casual. In fact, we liked it so much that we picked up more BBQ before we left town the next day! We then retired to the hotel, went swimming and called it a day.